


a little gift

by Xamem



Series: a little love [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Shane Is Doing Better, Short & Sweet, but they don't know it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18890224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xamem/pseuds/Xamem
Summary: Julia is a cashier at Joja and doesn't totally hate it, mostly because of the people she works with. Sam is fun, and Shane... Well, Shane is something else. A short night at the Saloon makes her realize that maybe she's become more ingrained in the Valley than she thought.





	a little gift

Julia stepped off the train and shivered, pulling her scarf even tighter around her neck. It was the dead of winter in the valley now, and while the clean sheet of white that covered everything was beautiful, it made it that much harder for her to drag herself to her job at Joja. Really, who would prefer ringing up vegetables and frozen pizzas all day to curling up under a soft comforter and drinking hot chocolate? The holiday season was swiftly approaching, and she knew they next few weeks would be filled with families frantically trying to check off their shopping lists, asking asinine questions about where the stocking candy was kept. If the train hadn’t already sped away, she’d be tempted to board again; as it was, she resigned herself to the chilly walk. The scenery offered only a slight distraction.

She passed through the large glass doors into the lovely heat of the mega-corp she’d been working at for a little over a year. She’d originally just intended to work part-time as she looked for a “real” job, but Zuzu City was expensive, and unlike most places in the city, Joja actually paid a living wage. She hadn’t expected it coming on as a cashier, but it was enough to pay the bills, and that was okay. She’d figure the rest out. Eventually.

“Good morning, Morris,” she called, tying the standard Joja apron in a swift bow. “What’s our objective for the day?”

“The same as it always is, Ms. Kennedy. Provide excellent customer service and make money.”

“Yeah, but did that new shipment come in?” Part of opening meant making sure that all the deliveries and new products that had come in the night before were put away properly. This was technically supposed to be the night crew’s job, except it was never finished by the night crew, so it always ended up being _her_ job.

“Oh, yes. It did. I expect you to be able to finish it by the time Mr. Anderson arrives.” Lilianna grimaced at this, knowing full well that she wouldn’t be able to finish unloading the massive shipment of what were predicted to be the best-selling toys of the season before Shane showed up for his shift.

“Can do, Morris.” At least the store wasn’t open yet, wouldn’t be for another two hours, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the sociality of people. Some of them were alright – Evelyn, the old granny, was always sweet to her, Jodi always had fun stories she could hold of Sam’s head, and Penny was kind, if sad for reasons Julia wasn’t sure about.

When Sam appeared for his shift early, she was immediately suspicious. The only reason Sam ever showed up for work early was if he was planning some shenanigans, or if he had been grounded from some other shenanigans and had nothing else to do.

“What’s up, Sam? What are you planning? And don’t pretend you aren’t planning anything.”

“Who, me?” Sam asked, accompanied with that grin that meant yes, of _course_ he was planning something. “I would never.”

“Whatever. I don’t care what it is, just make sure I get to see it before Morris does.”

“Can do, my friend. Meet me outside on your lunch break.” With that he scampered off to do whatever it was he had planned, and Julia could only pray that it didn’t get him in too much trouble.

* * *

 

Julia wasn’t sure what it was she had expected Sam to have prepared, but it certainly wasn’t the sight before her. In the time since she had first gone inside until now, Sam had managed to cover the entirety of Joja Corp’s remaining shipments, as well as the truck itself, in an assortment of holiday wrapping paper. It wasn’t just that he had pasted the paper on either, he had honest to Yoba managed to wrap even the truck like a regular present, with a huge gold bow to top it off. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry and settled for something in the middle, the laughs coming out as snorts with strangled sobs. She wasn’t sure how long she was standing there when Sam popped up behind her.

“Pretty good, right? Man, I never thought my gift-wrap skills would ever come in handy, but you can see the fruits of my labor right in front of you.”

Julia took few more gulps of air in an attempt to calm herself. “You mean to tell me…” she paused, letting out another wheeze. Sam looked entirely too pleased with himself. “You mean to tell me that in like, two hours, you managed to wrap _all_ of this up? And more impressive, that Morris didn’t even notice?”

A spark of panic appeared at the mention of Morris, but it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Julia wondered how Morris was going to react, something she wasn’t sure Sam had thought of before executing his prank. He’d done plenty of other pranks before, of course – the classic “office supplies in Jell-o,”, covering the bosses’ desk in sticky notes, prank calls with corporate – but this one might be a bit trickier to fix. For a store manager, Morris was surprisingly lenient. Julia suspected that part of it was Sam’s good nature – you couldn’t help but like him. The other half was the fact that nobody else in town wanted to work at Joja, and Morris needed _somebody_ stocking the shelves.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure all the blame falls on me. I mean, Seb and Abby helped speed it along, but it was my idea. I’ll make sure I’m the one that unwraps it.”

Julia surveyed the damage. Surely it wouldn’t take too long to undo – there was nothing meticulous about unwrapping a present. “Listen, if you need help, I’ve got you. This is by far your _best_ prank yet, and I need you to stick around so I can see you top it one day, as you inevitably will do.” Sam grinned another one of his infectious grins, and Julia nearly forgot about the cold.

“Thanks, Julia. I’ll make sure to get Morris’ reaction for you.”

Julia patted him on the shoulder and headed back inside, grateful for another warm blast of air. Her lunch break was nearly over, so she went to loiter near the clock, when she noticed Shane was there as well.

“Hey, Jules.” Shane wasn’t normally too chatty, but they had figured out the appropriate ratio of small talk to genuine conversation. He eyed her up and down, perhaps noticing that she no longer had her jacket. “Aren’t you cold?”

“I was only outside for a few minutes. Which I recommend, by the way.” She leaned in conspiratorially, double checking that Morris wasn’t lingering nearby, but he wasn’t. The clock was always the safe haven, a place where normal employees could talk, dance, cry, sometimes even scream a little bit. “Sam pulled off possibly the most epic prank of the year.”

“Oh, did he?” Shane whispered, indulging in her sense of secrecy. She noticed that he smelled like a piney aftershave, although the five o’clock shadow was already growing back in. “And what was it?” Julia leaned closer, close enough to count the freckles that dotted Shane’s nose.

“You’ll have to find out yourself.” She held eye contact with him a beat longer, green on green, before she turned to the clock, realizing she was now a few minutes late. “Dammit, Anderson, look what you’ve done. That’s an entire two cents I’ve lost there.”

“It’s not _my_ fault…” Shane grumbled, but smiled just the same, punching in after her. He gave her a jaunty little wave as she returned to her post at the register. His eventual howl of laughter was audible from inside, which attracted Morris, and the strangled scream of Sam’s name more than made up for the lost two cents.

* * *

 

“So how much time did he give you?” Julia whispered. Since Morris had discovered Sam’s “gift”, he had put him on register duty as punishment. Julia never minded the register; Sam couldn’t stand being still for so long, always in Morris’ line of sight. She wasn’t sure which one was worse: the stillness or the supervision.

“I’m on toilet duty for a month.”

“That’s rough, buddy,” Julia said, knowing that it wasn’t rough at all. Sam’s satisfaction from the prank would be enough to hold him over that month, probably longer.

Sam shrugged, still smiling. “That’s the price to pay for good art. Hey, are you going to the Saloon tonight?”

“Is something going on?” Julia glanced at Morris, suddenly wanting to escape the conversation. She hadn’t been to the Saloon in a few weeks, not since… well, not since she’d had too many beers that one night. She didn’t want to think about it.

“No,” Sam said, punching in a return he should’ve done ten minutes ago. “It’s just you haven’t been around in a little while. I actually beat Sebastian in pool last week.”

Julia snorted. “Oh, perish the thought. I’m sure he just let you win to boost your fragile ego.”

“It’s not like _you_ can beat me,” Sam muttered, but the bruise to his ego was enough for him to let it go, for which Julia was grateful.

 _You should just go,_ she thought to herself, shelving different brands of laundry detergent. _Nobody is going to remember, nobody will care._ But she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she stepped back in the Saloon everything she had been working so hard to avoid would come rushing back. She continued to stack detergents and soaps, weighing the pros and cons of going to the Saloon – she hadn’t had a good drink in a _long_ time. She made up her mind when Sam shot her his patented puppy-dog eyes at the end of their shift, nearly tripping over the mop in his effort to do so.

“Fine, fine,” she said, unable to resist. “I’ll be there, but only if you let me in on one of those pizzas your group orders. I know you never finish them.”

“A small price to pay for your enchanting company, Julia. I’ll see you when I’m finished up.” Part of toilet duty was that it wasn’t just cleaning the bathrooms – it was a _thorough_ scrubbing of the walls, sink, and mirror, making it so clean that a mirror was obsolete. It was going to take him awhile to do all that, so Julia shrugged on her jacket – the same Joja-brand hoodie all employees got – and clocked out, bracing herself for the night ahead.

* * *

 

It took Julia about five minutes of thinking of every worst-case scenario before she could finally bring herself to step through the door, and that was mostly because the jacket wasn’t thick enough to hold off the cold for long. Gus waved to her from behind the bar with a smile. She analyzed his body language, trying to determine if his smile was genuine or a forced pleasantry, if he resented having her back at his bar. As he returned to talking to the older blonde woman on the opposite end, she decided he probably didn’t care what she did as long as she bought a drink.

Julia shuffled to the right end of the bar – the end Gus wasn’t at, close to the bathroom, in case of emergency. She fiddled with the edge of her jacket out of sheer anxiety. _You only have to stay until Sam gets here. You promised him,_ she thought, now zipping the jacket in short, rapid movements. _You’ll be fine. Nobody is going to mention everything you threw up on or that you tried to…_ Her train of thought was interrupted as someone slid into the barstool next to her.

“I didn’t know you’d be coming tonight, Jules. I would’ve saved you a seat.” Shane circled the rim of his glass, then sipped slowly on the frothy beer. Julia wondered vaguely how many he’d managed to down before she got there.

“It’s not like you needed to,” she said, gesturing to the row of empty barstools. His aunt, Marnie, was the only other occupant, though she had abandoned that chair as the mayor walked in.

Shane shrugged, taking another slow sip. He wasn’t drinking as quickly as he usually did. “Well, maybe I wanted to sit next to you.”

“I…”

“Anything tonight, Julia?” Gus interrupted, having finished his conversation with the blonde woman. Julia hesitated. _You can have a cider, or two. You just need to control yourself and not drink too many. You know your limit – which isn’t much. It shouldn’t be hard._

“Um, I guess I’ll have some hard cider?” Even though she was a grown woman, well past twenty-one, she still felt weird ordering alcohol. She’d been a straight edge all her life. It wasn’t until recently that she’d started coming out of the shell she’d developed and begun to let herself ago.

Gus glanced at Shane’s half-full glass. “You good for now, Shane?”

“I’m good for tonight, actually.” Gus did a decent job at masking the surprise on his face, his main tell being a slight squint of the eyes. Gus left it alone and came back a moment later with Julia’s drink, promising to return if they needed anything. She sipped the cider, letting the crisp apple warm her throat.

“So…” Shane murmured, then stopped, frowning.

“So?”

“So I’m not great at small talk. I can’t even ask you about work because I know what happened because I was _there_. Yoba, nothing happens in this town.” He scratched at the back of his head and a few brown strands stuck up, like fluffy feathers. Julia had a sudden impulse to reach over and smooth it down, wondering how soft it might be. Instead she opted for asking a question.

“How’s Jas?” Shane’s goddaughter was one of the few things she could bring up at work that would definitely get him into a better mood. He loved doting on her, bragging about her – Julia had never met the child, but she felt like she knew her from all the times Shane had talked about her.

As she expected, Shane’s entire demeanor relaxed at the mention of Jas. “She’s good. She’s really excited for the Feast of the Winter Star. She wants a pair of ballet slippers, and I think I’m actually going to be able to afford them once our holiday bonuses come in. She’s going to be so excited. Of course, I’ve gotta get Vincent something too, and Marnie, though I haven’t really planned it yet… I’m thinking of getting her something to make the farm work easier, like a really nice quality brush for the cows, but I haven’t found on better than the stuff she’s got yet.” He finished off the beer and pushed the glass to the edge of the bar. “But what about your family? Your brother doesn’t have any kids, does he?”

Julia shook her head, hoping she could end this topic of conversation quickly. “No. He’s… he’s actually been deployed for a few months now. I got my first letter from him the other day. I sent him a gift, but who knows if he’ll actually get it.” She polished off her drink and gestured for Gus to bring her another.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Shane watched silently as she took a few heavy gulps of the fresh drink. He mercifully didn’t ask any more questions – she didn’t have any more family to speak of, and she was beginning to get lightheaded from the speed she was drinking. “Why don’t you join our celebration?”

“I couldn’t intrude on your family’s celebration, Shane.”

“It’s the whole town, Julia. You wouldn’t be intruding on anything. You might even be able to get in on the secret gift exchange if you talk to Lewis.”

“I’m not _part_ of this town, Shane, you know that, any more than Morris is. Just because I work at this Joja doesn’t mean I’m important enough to be part of this world,” she snapped.

Shane blinked blearily at her. She couldn’t be sure, but he looked… hurt. Like her words had wounded him. Her head began spinning, and not just from the alcohol.

“I… I need to go,” she murmured, fishing through her purse for some cash. Shane laid a bill on the table.

“I’ve got it. And I’ll walk you to the train station. It’s too cold and dark outside for you to go alone.” She didn’t protest, although she resolved to leave some money in his locker tomorrow. Sam entered just as they were leaving, and thankfully caught the mood before trying to say anything. She caught a casual “see you two tomorrow” before the door shut behind him.

Shane gestured for her to lead the way, and she did so. The silence was a little tense, but bearably so; she’d always been comfortable being quiet around Shane. Sam was wonderful, but exhausting.

Even in the dark, the Valley was beautiful. Fresh snow had fallen at some point during the day, and her footprints from that morning had disappeared, leaving a fresh canvas for them to trek across. The river gurgled softly beside them, and she could smell a crackling fire as they got closer to the train station.

“You don’t have to stay. The last train should be here in like, ten minutes.” Shane made no move to turn around, instead planting himself in front of her, hands in his pockets. _They really need to get him a new jacket,_ she thought, _this one is positively ratty._

“When you said you weren’t important… Jules, that isn’t true. I… You’re… I just… You understand, Jules. I mean you understand me like other people don’t. I just…” She’d never seen him at such a loss for words before. “Jules, you’re important to me.”

Julia’s cheeks flushed. Of all the things he’d say to her, this was the last thing she had expected. She knew they needed to talk about the last time at the Saloon, when she’d tried to kiss him in a drunk haze, but they’d put it off for so long. She thought that maybe – just maybe – if they left it alone, if they never brought it up again, they’d forget it ever happened. That the hollow feeling in her chest would go away whenever she looked at him.

It had almost worked.

She was frozen, unsure how to respond, praying that Shane would say something, _anything_ else, to fill the silence, but he seemed to be done. He wouldn’t take his eyes off her, and she wanted to tear her own eyes away so badly, knowing that she couldn’t, that she had to do something and do it quickly before he changed his mind. All she could do was take a single, hesitant step forward to close the distance between them. Shane wasn’t much taller than her, and they were nearly nose to nose. Another step would close the distance.

“You matter to me, Shane.” Whispered, almost with reverence, fearing that if she spoke it would break the mood. Shane moved to push a strand of her ginger hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear and letting his fingers linger at her cheek. She leaned in, lids half lowered, she could practically feel the _thump_ of her increasing heartbeat against her chest as he closed that last inch and let their lips connect.

Shane was soft on her lips despite the scratch of his beard, and softer against her as he tugged gently on her jacket, bringing her closer. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d kissed someone she’d cared about like this, without rushing or expectation. He held on for a moment longer and let go, stroking her cheek, giving her the warmest smile she’d seen in months.

“I think your train is here,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Maybe she was imagining it, but the flush of red seemed to have spread all the way to his neck. “I’ll, um, I’ll see you tomorrow, Jules.”

She leaned forward and planted another kiss on his cheek, emboldened. “Sure thing.” She boarded her train – one of exactly three passengers, and the only one awake at this time of night – and watched Shane until they sped away.

She settled into her chair. Whatever tomorrow brought, at least she had someone to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> hi this was fun. i wish the workers at joja were characters we could talk to. maybe ill play around with julia later but for now this is my headcanon and i love them. let me know if you liked it! and if you ever wanna talk stardew, you can always message me on tumblr @petalbrooke :)


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